


everything you know i'm flipping upside-down

by clairelutra (exosolarmoon)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Denial of Feelings, F/M, Falling In Love, Slight Character Study?, tending an injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 10:59:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10333169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exosolarmoon/pseuds/clairelutra
Summary: (The Chat who’d seen a casual acquaintance in distress and had carried her the rest of the way home, because that was just the kind of superhero he was.She’d like to think Marinette was just special to him, but she knew better; she’d caught him doing it for total strangers before.She wasn’t sure if that made it better or much, much worse.)(She’d always been weak to kindness.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> *hums*  
>  _who'd'ya think you're kiddin' he's the Earth and heaven to ya~_
> 
> *CACOPHONOUS COUGHING*

“Sorry,” said Chat almost mildly as he held up her leg, taking in the nasty scrape that ran up about twenty centimeters from her ankle. “ _How_ did you say you got this again?”

Marinette flopped back onto her lounge with a sigh and grudgingly admitted, “…Playing video games.”

Chat, pulling out the bottle of antiseptic spray and studying the scrape at an angle, raised a single eyebrow. She couldn’t actually see the eyebrow, but it was effective nonetheless. “…Do I want to know how?”

She threw her arms over her face. “No.”

Because, you know, of course it was Chat who would come to her rescue when he’d found her limping home from an exciting afternoon at her favorite gaming café.

The Chat whom she’d gone to the gaming café to get off her mind, because he was on it more often than not these days, and it was unnerving her. 

That Chat.

(The Chat who’d seen a casual acquaintance in distress and had carried her the rest of the way home, because that was just the kind of superhero he was.

She’d like to think Marinette was just special to him, but she knew better; she’d caught him doing it for total strangers before.

She wasn’t sure if that made it better or much, much worse.)

(She’d always been weak to kindness.)

Chat finished his inspection, picked up the clean, disposable gauze he’d set aside, and spritzed the wound.

She hissed, the sting making her stomach clench, and Chat rubbed her knee in quiet sympathy, murmuring apologies under his breath.

Marinette shut her eyes and tried not to think about anything, but especially not his warm, strong hands on her legs (or how much she wouldn’t mind if he touched her a bit more, if he slid just a little higher and dug his fingers into the meat of her thighs—) and failed spectacularly. Every new glancing touch made it impossible to think of anything else.

So it was something of a relief when he spoke again, if only to say, “This’ll probably hurt,” as he showed her the bandages he was about to apply.

He was right about that, but it did mute some of her physical reactions to having him so close and touching her skin, so she’d take it.

Then he started cleaning up the lingering mess, giving her merely glancing strokes over her calves, and yet Marinette found herself biting her lip as he worked, much more breathless than she really should have been.

(He was kind. He was gentle. He was polite and gentlemanly and playful and the most trustworthy person she’d ever met. He was flirty and silly and ridiculous and warm and he trusted her right back.

As the weeks went on, it was getting harder and harder to remember why she should be saying no to him.)

“And there you go,” he pronounced, once he was done and her proffered leg was cleaned up. “Be careful with that and you’ll be good as new in no time.”

“My hero,” she said, just this side of dry as she took her leg back with a grin that felt too hot on her face. 

“Of course!” He cocked her a grin right back and set his hands on his knees, preparing to get up. “I _always_ have time to help a pretty lady in need.”

(That he did, just as he always had time to help plain ladies and ladies who didn’t fit traditional beauty standards at all, too — not to mention the people who weren’t ladies at all; elderly men and young children and worried parents and misunderstood thugs and exhausted businessmen and distressed shopkeepers and—)

(She’d always been weak to kindness.)

“Oh no,” was all she said aloud, laying a hand over her heart and praying to every higher power that she wasn’t blushing. (It meant nothing that he’d called her ‘pretty,’ _Nothing_.) “My hero is a _flirt_. How could _this_ happen?”

Chat got up _purely_ so he could dip into an elaborate bow. “Excuse _you_.” His head popped up, already bearing a cheeky grin. “ _I_ mean every word.”

She buried her redred _red_ face in her hands and groaned. “You _dork_.”

He laughed, shocked and delighted and _loud_ , the noise bouncing off the walls of her room, and Marinette groaned again, biting down on her tongue, pulse throbbing in her mouth.

(She’d always been weak to kindness, but she found she was slowly developing a weakness to dorks too, and she _hated_ it.)

“Alright,” she said, sliding off the lounge so her own unimpressed hand-on-hip pose could be seen to its full effect. “Did my flirt hero want a thank you, or are we done here?”

(Or, at least, she intended it to be unimpressed. It was possible, _just_ possible, that it had come off much flirtier than she’d intended.)

“We’re done,” said Chat easily, with a stretch and a purr and a casual wave. “No worries, miss. Just glad you’re okay.”

Because that was how he rolled with casual acquaintances. Easy kindness and flirting that didn’t mean a thing.

If she’s been Ladybug, she thought, he would’ve (jokingly) asked for a kiss. He would’ve caught his breath, the way he always did when he got a blush out of her. He would’ve pressed his lips to her knuckles, and there wouldn’t have been anything casual about the gesture — there hadn’t been in what felt like years now.

And if he’d asked right then, she might not have said no.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, like she could possibly brush this off. “Save it for Ladybug.”

He beamed at her as he opened her window. “I plan to.”

“That wasn’t—!” she sputtered, a shock of adrenaline that was only partially fear racing up her spine. “I wasn’t— I didn’t mean—”

Chat barked another laugh as he launched himself from her window with an airy, “Later, princess!”

(And if he asked her for a kiss later tonight on patrol?

Marinette only wished she knew the answer to that.)

(That was a lie: she knew very well what she’d say.

Denial was just an old friend of hers, and she was going to miss it dearly.)


End file.
